Recap: 5 Things about 'Mad Men'

Recap: 5 Things about 'Mad Men'

Recapping "Mad Men" has gotten tough. To simply report what happened seems too casual, giving a complex show the short shrift. To delve deeper into Matthew Weiner's mind and examine each of the underlying currents going on here is just too hard for a Monday morning (there, I said it). So here we'll tackle the same five "themes" each week: - A Special Brand of Nuts: Betty, everyone's favorite "trying-to-reduce" psychopath, casually suggested to her husband Henry during a little pillow talk that maybe he might like to sneak into the next room and go for an assault of the underage kind with Sally's friend Sandy. She even offers to hold the poor girl's hands down for her. Such a comedian, this one! - Oh Dear, Oh Don: Have we all had enough to drink before we talk about Don? He looks miserable in Hawaii, where he reads Dante on the beach. Then the man gets drunk and vomits at Roger's mother's funeral. He makes a miserable pitch to his Hawaiian hotel clients. He's fallen back into his lascivious ways, which is depressing for everyone involved. And his sportcoats are only going to get more and more cringeworthy.- Workplace Gold: The new creative team at SDCP openly tokes it up. They should probably keep it down so that guy sleeping on the copywriters' couch doesn't wake up for the remainder of the season.- Winning!: Peggy, forced into Superbowl chit-chat with Ted's pastor: "I don't know, I think it's gonna be Oakland or Houston against Green Bay...And also with you." - Previews That Tell You Less Than You Already Knew: Next week, Roger is probably sarcastic ("I didn't know you were capable of being that bad"); people in advertising are trying to get business ("We'd do anything to make you happy"); Pete is bossy ("Don't do that"), Megan agrees to something Don says ("Yes, sir"); Don explains it all ("That's how it works"); Harry lacks authority ("I will have to double-check"); Peggy tries to be sneaky ("Well he doesn't know that"); and Pete asks a rhetorical question ("It's all about what it looks like, isn't it?"). And then -- Don turns away from Roger and shakes his head. OH, IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.